Developing a sliding puzzle

Unity Engine
1

I’m a graphic designer and not so experienced with App-developing software.
Me and a friend developed an idea for a sliding puzzle game.*

THE IDEA
The puzzle contains of colored squares.*
A colored circle has been placed on each square.*
The color of the square and circle doesn’t match with each other.*
The player is only able to move the circles (horizontal, vertical or diagonal).*
When you move one circle on another circle, this two circles swap places. (the JPG-image gives an example).
The goal of the game is to place every yellow circle, on every yellow square; every orange circle on the orange squares, etcetera. When all colors match the game is finished.

Click here for an example
1597557--96129--$Uitleg beknopt.jpg

QUESTIONS

  • We wonder how difficult it is to develop our game for people who are not experienced in programming (we’re only professionals users of Adobe Creative Suite)
  • Which software would you recommend (Unity, Gamesalad or some other program).*
  • If we decide to hire some professional programmer, how much work (hours) will it take to write this game?

We hope that you help us with this questions.

Thanks a lot!

2

Well, it’s not the most complicated game in the world, but if you have little or no programming experience it’ll be difficult.

You’re asking on a Unity forum, so we’re going to say Unity.

Depends what you mean by “this game”. I’d imagine that writing some scripts that implement the logic you described would take a decent scripter one day. If you mean the game running on lots of devices, with different screen resolutions, tutorials, multiple levels with increasing level of detail, hooks into Facebook, Twitter, Game Center and so on, then a few months, including some QA testing.